McSweeney's "Letter to the Homeless Person Who Saw Me Lose It"

BLOT: (07 Nov 2010 - 12:05:11 PM)

McSweeney's "Letter to the Homeless Person Who Saw Me Lose It"

McSweeney's website has a series of "Open Letters to People or Entities Unlikely to Respond". On November 5, 2010, there was posted "AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HOMELESS MAN WHO WITNESSED ME TOTALLY LOSE IT LAST WEEK". The gist? Dude has a really crappy "professional meet-up" that turns out to be mostly people shatting out buzzwords about social media and using brand as though it had a capital B and they knew what they were talking about. Basically, what happens when the sort of people who use synergize on Twitter get together in real life. On the way back, the mostly broke and unemployed man is approached by a homeless guy looking for money, and our suited gentleman flips out. Throws money in the street.

Leaving aside the "How annoying is it to be begged off of...especially in a place like Huntsville where half our beggars drive around in cars until they get to their spot?", I just thought it summed up human interactions in an interesting way, and wanted to point it out.

Plus, it is a good life lesson. Not everyone who wears a suit deserves to wear a suit, and not everyone who lives on the street got there do to easily summable reasons. There is a student I know, who is working hard to get his degree, and he is homeless. He lives in his car most of the time and has a few friends who help him out. He is at the library every night working on homework. But, once you reach that stage, once he gets done, what will happen next? Even with a degree, without a mailing address or nice clothes, is he going to have that much of a chance? I don't know, but I hope so.

LABEL(s): Society

BY WEEK: 2010, Week 44
BY MONTH: November 2010